He tapped her nose. “You’ll never know.”
“Did you cook, Maia?” Kelly said. “It smells delicious.”
I nodded and Dan swept me into a hug. “I’ve heard so much about your food that it’s mythical at this point.”
“Well, we’re about to see if it can live up to the hype!”
“Where’s your man?” he asked, looking around. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to broadcast our fight despite all the oversharing that had just happened. Zane could share if he wanted, but it wasn’t my place.
My man.
He was the only person I’d ever thought of like that. I belonged to him and he belonged to me. I was scared to take a chance and complicate his already thoroughly complicated life, but since he’d walked out the door the truth had been steadily sinking in.
I couldn’t lose him again.
“He’s in the garage with Alex,” Kelly said.
Dan was already heading there before I could tell him to give Zane space. “I’ll go tell him the food is ready. And ask him to remove the trespasser from his house,” he said, nodding at Ophelia.
Ophelia followed him, talking shit the whole way, so I tagged along, hoping to minimize the chaos. Before I knew what was happening, we were all heading to the garage as a group. Dan swung the door to the garage open and we were halfway inside when Zane’s voice carried to us.
“Just fucking fire her, Alex!”
50
ZANE
Now
* * *
She loved me back.
The thought ricochetted through my brain as I drove without a destination.
How could I have been so blind?
I’d been a fool. I kept saying she needed to fight for it, but I’d been the one who just let her go.
How could I not have seen it? None of it really made sense until tonight. It had been easier to believe she didn’t want me than to even conceive of a world where she’d hurt us both like that for the sake of my career.
I was angry with her for making that decision on her own, but angrier still with myself. What if I’d gone after her when she left? I should’ve had the confidence to see through her shit and pushed back. If it hurt her like it hurt me, she couldn’t have kept that charade up for long. If I’d gone into the elevator with her, would the cracks have started to show?
One phone call.
What if I’d swallowed my wounded pride and called her just one of the thousand times I thought about doing it?
Don’t be pathetic, Zane.
The word “pathetic” had been too precise a blow. She’d made damn sure I wouldn’t go after her.
For my own good?
What the fuck, Maia?
I thumped the steering wheel, turning back towards my house.
I wasn’t going to live with this kind of regret twice.
